David Bowie short film to launch in New York

Short film Let’s Dance: Bowie Down Under goes behind the scenes of late icon’s 1983 video

A short film exploring David Bowie’s 1983 video for his track Let’s Dance is to receive its premiere in New York next week.

Let’s Dance: Bowie Down Under goes behind the scenes of the promo, which was filmed in the town of Carinda, Australia. The shoot mixed scenes of dance with footage showing the plight of the Aboriginal people and was directed by David Mallet.

Mallet tells Rolling Stone: “It was very much David’s idea and concept. It was his idea to shoot in Australia, which in those days was a bold thing to do for a music video. I don’t think any of us had any idea how important it was to do and what the reaction would be.”

Rubika Shah directed the short, and says the seeds were sown in 2008 when she noticed the divides between whites and Aboriginals in the country.

Shah says: “Me being non-white myself, I started to understand some of those things he was saying. You don’t really see Aboriginal people in the towns or when you go out to bars. I couldn’t believe that this story hadn’t been told.”

Bowie says in the documentary: “It’s a lot more straightforward than anything I’ve done in a long time. It’s not so concerned with juxtaposing surreal images together. It’s a very direct statement about integration of one culture with another.”